


Hope for Change

by devilinthedetails



Series: Spring Cherry Blossoms [2]
Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Gen, Hope, Politics, References to Suicide, Yamani Islands, change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25080217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: On her way to be married in the Yamani Islands, Shinko receives news from the Emperor that gives her hope for change.
Series: Spring Cherry Blossoms [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1816384
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	Hope for Change

Hope for Change

Shinko could glimpse the gray sheets of rain falling through the slits of her elaborately decorated norimono litter and hear the rain beat an irregular rhythm against the gilded roof. Rain dripping from a pavilion would be called a veil of pearls or bride’s tears, Shinko reflected because she had little else to occupy her mind as she was borne from her disgraced status at Imperial Court to a life of dreamless drudgery enslaved by a sneering mother-in-law who would never cease reminding her of her family’s humiliation.

The two images of a vail of pearls and bride’s tears had first been linked by the poets centuries ago because young women wore veils of pearls when they married and were often weeping over homes and families left behind forever when they were taken to their husband’s house and family. The veil of pearls might have been meant as a beautiful way of hiding their tears but it never worked as intended. It only turned their tears of sorrow into something sublime. 

Not that Shinko would weep much for her lost home. She had left that behind long ago when her parents had been ordered to commit suicide, and she had been sent, head bowed in shame, to her uncle’s Imperial Court, ruthless as it was glamorous, treacherous as the ocean beneath its grace and manners. 

She would not miss how she had been perpetually scorned and shunned there, though she would, of course, miss her brother Naoki, who had been placed in the guardianship of a noble warrior in charge of training him in the fighting arts years ago, and whom Shinko might never see again after she was wed. A married woman belonged to her husband’s family, after all, not the one of her birth, especially if the one of her birth had fallen into socially and politically disadvantageous disrepute. 

Shinko was so swallowed by her bleak contemplations that at first she didn’t notice her norimono coming to a halt. It took the jolt of her norimono being placed onto what was doubtlessly muddy road to move her from her mind back to the harsh world of reality. 

She stuck her had out of a grate in the norimono, beckoning for Akio, the captain of her guard, to approach. When she had left the Imperial Court, the emperor had commanded a sparse force to protect her on her trip north to a marriage that was doomed to misery because of a tyrannical mother-in-law. The small size of the guard would’ve been a grave insult if she wasn’t deep in disgrace, stained by the actions of her parents beyond the ability of any water to wash clean. 

When he reached her, she asked, calm because a lady should never seem ruffled by any of the indignities and unpleasantries of travel, “Why have we stopped, captain? It was our intention to travel many more miles this day, was it not?” 

“Two ladies from the Imperial Court have arrived bearing a message for you from the Emperor, Your Imperial Highness.” Akio bowed to her, palms pressed against the breeches of his uniform, Shinko could see that through the slits of her norimono. 

“Have a tent raised for me to receive them in, captain. I will speak to them at once.” Shinko waved her hand in dismissal, glad that it didn’t appear to tremble as everything inside her shook like an autumn leaf in a fierce wind, wondering what message her imperial uncle would dispatch to her in the form of two court ladies. 

“I hear and obey.” Akio bowed again and disappeared to ensure the tent was raised as she bid. 

Shinko used the time to reflect further. A message from the emperor could be life-changing, and since her life presently was so devoid of hope, she dared to the sliver of light in her soul that had been so dark for all the endless days of her journey that now whispered to her that since her current fate was so grim, the tidings from the emperor could only contain what amounted to good fortune for her. 

“The tent is ready, Your Imperial Highness.” Akio gave a heraldic knock on her norimono’s door before lowering it with a sweeping bow so she might step out onto the muddy ground. 

It had stopped raining, she observed, but there was no tremendous shock in that for it was often remarked—sometimes in jest and sometimes in solemnity—that in the Yamani Islands if one did not find the weather agreeable, one could simply wait for five minutes for it to shift into something more amiable. The Yamani weather was changeable as the tides of the waves that nipped at the shores of the islands. Now the rain had been replaced by a mist born from the ocean and trapped by the towering white-capped crags of the mountains. 

Taking care not to rest her feet in any puddles that would soak and sully her silk slippers, Shinko strode at a measured pace toward the tent that had been erected so swiftly at her command, head held high as if in procession instead of on an isolated mountain road because a princess of the Imperial line always acted as if she were gazed upon by a thousand eyes. 

Once she had entered the tent, observed to her satisfaction that Akio had stationed sentries around the tent’s generous interior, and settled herself on the spread carpet, she told her captain, “I’m ready to receive my noble visitors now. Please admit them.” 

Akio held back the folds of the tent, and a minute later, two ladies in the elegant kimonos of the Imperial Court swished in with a scent of cherry blossom perfume that made Shinko’s nose dance. They fell to their knees on the carpet before Shinko, performing the full and formal obeisance—forehead hitting the floor three times—that Shinko hadn’t received since her parents’ fall from grace, and that was how Shinko knew she had been restored to all the privileges of her rank that had been denied to her for so many seasons. 

“The gracious ladies, Haname noh Ajikuro and Yukimi noh Daiomoru,” Akio announced her visitors as they finished their obeisance.

“Arise.” Shinko offered a polite and pleasant smile of welcome to the ladies Haname and Yukimi. “It’s an unexpected joy to receive you both.” 

“We come bearing somber tidings for you from his Imperial Majesty.” Lady Haname inclined her head at the mention of the emperor, a sign that she like every other citizen of the Yamani Islands humbly submitted herself to his will. 

“Somber tidings we believe may be cause of celebration for you.” Yukimi’s almond-shaped eyes crinkle in a betrayal of humor Shinko had glimpsed on a hundred occasions when they were growing up at court, where Yukimi had been friendly and sharp-tongued by turns, but she had been sharp-tongued with everyone, so her barbs were not specifically directed toward an Imperial princess in disgrace as Shinko had been but now with the fickle winds of change that blew through the Yamani court would apparently be no longer.

“You might think it would be cause for celebration.” Haname’s fan flapped at Yukimi in a fashion that firmly stated: Speak for yourself; you may presume too much, but I do not. The Ajikuo line was an ancient one, older even than the emperor’s exalted bloodline, and it had not lasted so long by its members being quick to presume too much, Haname’s fan flicker seemed to say. “I would not presume to know the mind or heart of an Imperial princess.” 

Returning her full attention to Shinko, she went on, “Your Imperial uncle has dissolved your betrothal and has declared that you are instead to wed the Crown Prince of Tortall to secure an enduring peace between our lands and that strange country.” 

She would be married to a distant horizon, a fate that might have made most well-born woman blink back tears, but Shinko wouldn’t cry for grief. Instead she felt as if she might weep for joy. She would not be the slave of a tyrannical mother-in-law. She didn’t know what destiny awaited her in Tortall, but it had to be better than what would have awaited her here in the islands. Of that she could be sure. 

She would replace the favored Princess Chisakami who had died in an earthquake before she could meet Tortall’s Crown Prince. She would be an emblem and embodiment in her young person of a treaty between two lands meant to survive generations. A slender, graceful token of peace extended from her uncle the emperor to his royal cousin, King Jonathan, across the waves. 

Determined to embrace her own symbolism, she listened as Haname continued, serious as stone, “The Lady Yukimi and I will be your companions on your journey to Tortall, and we are to remain in your service when we reach Tortall. You will be married to a distant horizon, and so will we.” 

“I am honored to have two such noble ladies as my companions and in my service.” Shinko’s fingers stroked at her fan as she considered her situation. Lady Haname from a grand bloodline being placed in her service was the greatest honor apart from arranging her marriage to the Crown Prince of Tortall that her uncle the emperor had ever bestowed upon her, and Yukimi was as much a friend as she had ever had at the cruel, cold Imperial Court. Yukimi being placed in her service might have been a gift from an emperor who had never granted her one before. Perhaps this dizzying sensation of being swept up in a powerful breeze of change was how it felt to be favored by the emperor. 

“It’ll be a grand adventure.” Yukimi’s eyes twinkled like stars, ignoring the repressive glance Haname shot her, and Shinko realized that she could look forward to many such battles between her ladies-in-waiting. “We are to escort you to the port in the south, where we are to be met by the ever-cheerful Prince Eitaro. There we will board a ship for our voyage to Tortall.” 

Shinko’s eyes sparkled as well for she had heard rumors that Prince Eitaro was an eternally dour man and appreciated Yukimi’s keen wit. 

“It’ll be a long journey.” Haname’s tone was reproachful but careful not to stray into territory that might be deemed unpleasant. “We won’t be able to rest often, Your Imperial Highness, for I’m afraid that the utmost haste is required for us to reach the port in time for a safe sailing to Tortall.” 

“We’ll be traveling to a magnificent change, Lady Haname.” Shinko remembered an apt aphorism and recited it. “Have not the most articulate poets said a change is as good as a rest?” 

With the adrenaline and energy pounding through her veins like a war drum each time her heart beat, Shinko had never believed in the truth of that expression so much as she did now. 

“Of course, Your Imperial Highness.” Lady Haname might have sounded nonplussed if she wasn’t so well-bred, Shinko thought. “It has been wisely and truly said by the empire’s most revered poets.” 

“We will also stop often to pay due homage to the gods, and prayer is rest for the soul.” Shinko snapped her fan shut decisively. Nobody could object to the piety of a princess burning incense to the gods for happiness and good fortune in her marriage, and if she also burned incense in gratitude to the gods for her escape from a tyrannical mother-in-law that was a secret she could lock in the hidden chambers of her heart. “We will pray at the nearest temple, and every other one we find on our way down to the ship that will take us to Tortall.” 

True as iron to her word, Shinko stopped to pray at every temple en route to the port where she would sail to Tortall. She and her ladies crossed a hundred arched bridges to pagoda temples built on lakes and in streams. 

They fed the koi—symbols of love and friendship in the Yamani Islands because their character was a homophone for a character that meant love and affection—that were plump from the generosity of other travelers and worshippers. 

They released floating paper lanterns—bright red for luck and etched with characters that implored the gods to bring happiness, honor, and hope to a marriage—onto these same streams and lakes as glowing testaments to Shinko’s dreams of what her life in Tortall might be like. 

They bowed—pressing their foreheads against the bamboo mats of the temple floors—before golden statues of a hundred gods and admired the pictures of hundred more gods on temple screens. 

They burned incense to these same gods, and Shinko prayed the incense would smell sweet enough to these divine entities that they would bless her marriage to the Crown Prince of Tortall as they had in their mercy spared her from the cruelty of the woman who would have been her mother-in-law. In the presence of the gods, Shinko’s soul found both rest and the hope for change.


End file.
